Murkes.Com

I am happy for Take-Two. With the unbridled success of Grand Theft Auto IV, they will be able to keep an EA take-over at bay for a little longer. This videogame has exceeded the wildest expectations, with review scores nearing the much-coveted 10 score.
And to be fair, the game looks amazing: New York Liberty City has never looked so crisp. What’s even more astounding is that the feeling of a living and breathing city has succesfully been captured in a videogame. Driving around, a player instinctively knows what the good and bad neighborhoods are, since even the population differs from one block to the next. Truly a remarkable feat.
But with regards to gameplay, I still do not understand why this game get so many high marks. In essence, there has been no revolution in gameplay since the original Grand Theft Auto: drive from A to B in order to achieve an objective, stay out of the way from the police, and have a free-roaming city-space at your disposal.
I understand that this game resides within it’s own genre with regard to gameplay. Likewise, racing games will not ask you to jump platforms. But I really think it is a missed opportunity.
Consider that what is the foundation of the game: the open city-environment. As mentioned before, great strides have been made in making this environment a self-sustained universe, where the virtual populace goes about it’s own business. The player is merely a small and almost insignificant speck inside this space. There is a real opportunity to expand the gameplay horizon with genre defining situations.
You have the gamespace, why should it not incorporate more gameplay genres and features?